


Prince Takes Knight

by DachOsmin



Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Aphrodisiacs, Dubious Consent, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fuck Or Die, M/M, Pining, Sex Pollen, Sibling Incest, Undercover as a Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-23 03:06:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10710873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DachOsmin/pseuds/DachOsmin
Summary: Thomas looked up at me with raised eyebrows. “You want me to go with you into the heart of High Sidhe, home to the most powerful and sadistic monsters this side of December- as arm candy?”





	Prince Takes Knight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamiflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy! The foreign bits have hover text of what the characters are actually saying :)

“I’m going to die” I said without preamble, collapsing onto the couch in dramatic repose.

Thomas, who had spent the afternoon lounging in my living room, gave me a quick glance- presumably to tell how serious I was, impending doom being a fairly often occurrence in our lives. “Nice of you to tell me about it this time,” he said, looking back down at his book.

I winced because okay, he had a point there. Not that I was about to admit it. “Your concern is appreciated.”

He rolled his eyes. “What is the manner of your impending demise, if may I ask? Rampaging dinosaurs? Cursed werewolves? We haven’t had any cursed werewolves in a while.”

I brandished the letter that had just shown up in the mail box, despite it being Sunday. The envelope was that kind of rough edged parchment that probably cost some obscene amount of money at a specialty stationary shop, and the envelope smelled like it’d been pummeled by a florist with extreme prejudice. “I’ve been cordially invited,” I read out loud, “to a celebration of the Vernal Equinox and the coming ascendancy of the Summer Sidhe. To be held two weeks hence. Black Tie.”

He snickered. “I can see why you’re worried. Do you even own a tux?”

“Yes,” I gritted out. I did. Somewhere. Was the rental shop on fifth street still open?

He shrugged and looked back at his book. “Then I’m not sure what the problem is. Free drinks. Hot girls. A fully stocked buffet.”

I was once again reminded that Thomas and I had different ideas of a good time. The drinks were fine. The food was fine. The faerie women… I thought back to my last winter soiree and shuddered. Fingers trailing like icicles down the small of my back, the gnashing of teeth and glittering eyes in the darkness. Cold. “There’s been some confusion about whether I’m on the menu, in the past.”

I caught a barely concealed eye-roll at that. “Poor Harry, dodging beautiful women.”

“I would rather dodge bullets,” I said, with a bit more heat than I’d intended.

He looked up, something tight in his jaw. “As long as you dodge them.”

That got another cringe; he was really on fire tonight. “Questionable decisions I’ve made in the past aside, I was actually wondering whether you might want come with me.”

He made a strange face. “You mean as your date?”

“Yes? Because what faerie is going to go after me when she’d have to fight a white court prince for the honor?”

He set the book down, marking his place with a scrap of paper before looking up at me with raised eyebrows. “You want me to go with you into the heart of High Sidhe, home to the most powerful and sadistic monsters this side of December- as arm candy?”

“Basically,” I said, wincing at how utterly inadequate that was. Maybe I should have bought him flowers too.

He regarded me for a second before falling back against the pillows of the couch with an audible huff. “You could have just lead with that.”

“Is that a yes, then?”

But he was frowning into his cup of tea, a curl of hair artfully falling over his brow. He managed to look like a tragic Byronic hero even wearing sweatpants, the bastard. How did he do it? Moisturizer? Yoga? The parasitic vampire sex probably helped.

“I see your problem and am supportive and all that but- why do you want me? If you need a date why not ask-”

But I was already shaking my head. “I can’t put Karrin in that kind of danger. Molly could handle it but I wouldn’t want her to get the… the wrong idea, if you know what I mean. But of course that isn’t a problem with you.”

“The wrong idea. Of course.” Thomas’s voice sounded strange in my ears, almost flat. “We wouldn’t want that.”

“Is that a yes then?”

He sighed. “It’s one party,” he muttered, like he was trying to convince himself. “How bad could it be?”

***

The day of the ball dawned with a torrential thunderstorm, which I absolutely refused to take as an omen.

Alas, the tux rental on fifth street was no longer open, and I spent the day leading up to the fete running my way through all the tailors in Chicago with an increasing sense of panic. I finally managed to find something in my size and price range at a thrift shop that smelled exactly how you’d expect it to. It was dusted in cat hair, but I had a lint roller and knew how to use it. I managed to get the suit on and the cat hair off by 6:59 pm, all the while keeping an over-enthused Mouse from adding his own fur to the mix.

The doorbell rang just as I had successfully corralled Mouse in my bedroom. “Yeah, yeah,” I muttered as it rang a second time. “Hold your horses.”

I pulled the chain of the door and yanked the door open. “You’re actually on time, I wasn’t-“

And then I happened to glance at Thomas and abruptly fell silent. My mouth might have been hanging open too; it was hard to tell.

I didn’t see him dressed up very often; it wasn’t his style. To put it this way: Thomas got stares in pizza-stained sweatpants and bed-hair. To see him dressed to the nines was… something.

He was wearing a three-piece suit cut from what could have been liquid white silk. White suits were supposed to look cheap; I was pretty sure. This one looked like custom tailoring and boatloads of money. And when combined with Thomas’ body… the fabric hugged his figure like a second skin, showing off every perfect angle god had provided him: long tapered legs, a trim waist, lithely muscled arms. It was a lot to take in.

“Earth to Harry?” He was looking at me with a smug little grin, damn him. Bastard wasn’t just beautiful, he knew it too.

 I swallowed roughly. “That’s not a tux,” I finally said.

That got an eye roll and a scoff. “It’s bespoke from the Dolce & Gabbana Spring Collection, and I’m visiting royalty,” he said, in a tone that strongly implied dress codes were for Other People. “May I come in?”

“Oh, yeah, uh, sure,” I said, awkwardly pressing against the wall to allow him in. Smooth, Harry, real smooth. I closed the door behind him and turned around to see him staring at me.

I suddenly felt self-conscious and fought down the urge to duck away. I wasn’t exactly royalty, and I certainly didn’t have a fancy handmade suit. The frayed hem of my pants and errant bits of cat hair on my jacket stood out like sore thumbs. I’d showered with the good shampoo and managed to shave without nicking myself; by my own standards this was pretty much as good as I was going to get.

But Thomas didn’t sigh or roll his eyes at me. He looked me up and down, eyes dragging over the lines of the suit in a way that made me shiver, though I couldn’t have said why.

I crossed my arms. “If you have something to say-“

“Sorry, I’m used to that ridiculous duster. You don’t have a bow tie?”

I raised a hand to the collar of my shirt and sighed. “I can’t find it,” I said glumly. It had been a nice one, not even a clip on. “Mister probably got it.”

“Tragic,” he said, looking suspiciously chipper. “Luckily for you I brought one for you.” He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a ribbon made of the same white silk as his suit. “Allow me,” he murmured.

“I- okay,” I said lamely. That was apparently all the invitation he needed; he stepped closer, so close that our noses were almost touching.

He took my chin in his palm, gently lifted my head up while threading the ribbon through my collar with his other hand. I swallowed. “Does white really go? With the suit I mean; it seems-“

He cut me off with a low chuckle; I could feel his breath hot against the skin of my neck. “It’s not a fashion statement, Harry.” He leaned in, whispered into my ear: “It’s a claim.”

“Oh.” I swallowed. Of course. I’d asked him to come as my fake boyfriend, and he was going to play the role to the hilt. He probably did this all the time; got dressed up, went to glamorous parties. Except it was normally some beautiful supermodel on his arm, not… me. It must have been pretty funny to him: resident loser Harry Dresden, so awkward he had to take his own brother to the prom.

Thomas stepped back and surveyed his handiwork with a nod. “It will do. You’ll do. Although when we get back, I’m setting fire to that suit.”

Considering how parties I went to generally turned out, I wasn’t sure he was going to need to. Not that I told him that.

***

We arrived at the ball to stares and hushed whispers. It was everything I’d expected: glittering excess dripping over every surface visible, men and women inhuman in their beauty. The hall was cast in shades of green and gold; the lights winked on and off overhead like a cloud of hazy fireflies.

Of course I didn’t get to spend too long admiring the decor because as soon as we had we been announced, a sidhe maiden was stalking up to us with a devilish smile on her face.

“Sir Knight,” she purred, “What a lovely-“

Thomas was suddenly at my side. “Faigh do bia féin,” he spat, pulling me back against his chest with a rough snarl.

She bared her teeth at him; cast pale green in the faerie lights of the eaves. He bared his own smile in response. Something hung in the air between them, a tension I could almost taste in the back of my throat. I felt like a gazelle carcass in the midst of a lion pride. At last the fae closed her mouth and dipped in a small curtsy before moving away into the riot of the crowd. She didn’t turn her back on him until she’d disappeared from view. He watched her go, still and cold as marble.

I cleared my throat. “What was that about?”

He blinked a few times and looked down at me, as if he’d just remembered I was there. “I told her I didn’t share. That was why you brought me?”

His arm was still heavy against my chest. “Yes,” I said. “It was.”

The tension built over the night. More and more ladies- and a number of lords; that was new- threw themselves at me with various degrees of subtlety. Thomas fended them all off with icy smiles, perfect politeness, and the unshakeable sense that he was willing to gut any and all of them in the middle of their own hall if they looked at me the wrong way.

It would have been funny, except Thomas was becoming more and more terse in his dealings with me. He wouldn’t look me in the eye after the fourth proposition, and stopped speaking to me in anything but monosyllabic grunts after the sixth. I hadn’t realize it would bother him so much. Was it the fact that he wished he was free to sleep with the fae? Or was he just upset that people assumed we were together?

I grinned at him weakly after a particularly unsubtle banshee tried her hand. “Who’d have thought that I’d be this popular, huh?”

He barely looked at me. “They want to eat you, not sleep with you.”

So much for cutting the tension. And really, he didn’t have to rub it in. “Just because I’m not a literal sex god-“

The room suddenly went quiet, then erupted in a cacophony of hissing. I spun around, spells ready on my tongue and hand clasped over the charms of my shield bracelet. But it wasn’t a rampaging monster or an invading army. The crowds of sidhe milling around us had parted, and through the breach a single woman walked towards us, heartbreaking in her loveliness.

Even without the reactions of the crowd, it was obvious she wasn’t one of the fae. She wore no summer silks or winter satins; there were no budding flowers or icy berries in her hair. What she did have was jewelry: cords of gold and copper on her neck, bejeweled rings on every finger. Her gown looked like molten gold with threads of bronze and silver to catch the light. And on her brow, a dull metal circlet, unadorned.

I felt something cold unfurl in the pit of my stomach. That was iron. Cold iron, brought bare into the heart of Sidhe. Well. That explained the hissing.

She had to be insane. Insane, or very, very powerful.

She stopped a few feet from us and dropped into a lilting curtsy. Thomas shoved me behind him with rough hands. I would have bridled at the gesture- I wasn’t some fainting maiden in need of protection, damn him- but I was still boggling at Miss Ironsides.

She raised an eyebrow at Thomas. "Veriro ico, thamathia acnasvera rasenna. Proco ic penes mlaca-acaletur kuais camaremis."

The words sounded ancient on her tongue, like no language I’d ever heard before. For a second I thought it was some eldritch incantation we weren’t meant to understand. But then Thomas sighed and inclined his head in the barest of nods. "Poia procis, aisis mechis?"

Ah. So this was going to be one of those things where everyone but Harry knew what was going on. How typical. I considered loudly making a scene but thought better of it. Never let it be said that I don’t learn.

She shrugged at whatever Thomas had said, a small smile playing across her face. “Acuno apena. Am mevis preco ciso?”

Thomas laughed, low and heady, and I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. He hadn’t been this friendly to any of the other women. Or the men, for that matter. “Clal scuna? Cati.”

She winked in reply, and gestured at the fae glaring at her back. “Heva ama ainera.” And then she was peering behind Thomas’s to look at me, her mouth pursed in a frown. “Mi penso ico an thacsa thuvi.”

She was probably asking why he was slumming it with someone like me. She would make a perfect matched pair next to Thomas: him silver and her golden, both achingly beautiful. Thomas must have thought so too; he glanced back at me with a frown and I knew I wasn’t imagining the tightness in his jaw. “Ec churu an thasca ica.”

“Posco trinthis, coso ruva thasca.” Stepping closer, she rested a hand on the silk of his sleeve. I held my breath, waiting for Thomas to shove her away, put up that icy front he’d been maintaining the whole night through. But no, he was… blushing?

She looked up at him through the fall of her hair, eyes half lidded and lips parted. When she next spoke, it was in a throaty murmur that sent a shiver down my spine. “Favine tamera na mutna ama pro; poste fetra aphea.”

I watched with a sinking spirit as he plucked her hand off of his sleeve and raised it to his mouth, pressing a chaste kiss to the knuckle of her ring finger. I didn’t need to see any more than that. I’d already felt awkward enough dragging Thomas into this, and now he was making it more than clear that he wanted to get to know this woman without me around. I could take a hint; I knew a metaphorical sock on the door when I saw one.

I backed away, disappearing into the crowd.

***

Thomas caught up to me about ten minutes later.

I’d eschewed the crowded spaces of the main halls for the shadowed corridors further afield: less murder-faeries trying to fuck me or eat me or whatever it was they wanted to do.

He caught me skulking- not hiding, absolutely not hiding- in a spare hallway of undressed stone and closed doors, close to where I figured the kitchens were. By the look on his face, I almost wished he hadn’t found me at all.

Glaring, he paced over and grabbed me by the arm before I could walk away. “Empty Night, what part of ‘stay close to me’ do you not understand?” he hissed.

“You looked happy enough being close to your new friend.” Eying the empty hallway, I picked a door at random, yanked it open hard. I wasn’t having this conversation out in the open where every little goblin and ghoul could hear, and then giggle later about how pathetic Harry Dresden was. The door opened onto a spare storeroom, more of a cupboard really. I stalked inside, not waiting for Thomas to follow.

He shut the door behind me and leaned against the wall, running a hand through his hair. “Really, Harry? I talk to a pretty girl and you throw a tantrum and run off in a huff? Are you five years old?”

“It wasn’t a tantrum,” I muttered. My cheeks were burning and I couldn’t seem to look anywhere but the floor. “I was trying to give you some space with her. Do something nice for you.”

“Having to hunt you down in this viper pit is not ‘doing something nice for me,’ you imbecile. You wildly misread the situation.”

“Really? Because it’s pretty obvious you’ve been getting more and more pissed off sticking with me. And the girl- you were making doe eyes at her like a kid at his junior prom. You were blushing, Thomas. Hell, I didn’t even know you could blush.”

“That’s not-“ He sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not what was going on.”

I shrugged. “Say what you want, but I know desire when I see it.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw, and I knew I’d touched a nerve. “I think we’ve stayed for long enough. We’re leaving. We’ll talk about this at home.”

“Fine,” I snapped, having absolutely no intention of talking about any of this, ever. I shoved past him to push on the door.

It didn’t move.

I tried again. Nothing.

“Um. Thomas?”

With a muttered curse he came over to my side, bracing his hands flat against the door and pressing into it hard. I watched as the sleeves of his suit and the collar of his shirt went taut. He was giving it his all, and I’d seen him rip a man apart before. But the door didn’t budge.

He leaned back a minute later, breathing heavily. “Try your magic.”

I bit my lip and nodded. Stepping forward, I ran my fingers over the seams of the doors, feeling for  pushed against the edges of the door, feeling for give in the wards. But there was an oiliness to them; my magic slipped away from the edges, pooling and puddling at my feet. I pushed harder, but the wards only swayed away from the pressure like willow trees in a light breeze. I wasn’t going to break these. Not in a million years.

Thomas watched me with sharp eyes. “Can you get through?”

With another impotent push, I let my hands drop to my sides. “Not without calling on Winter.”

The sudden flare of his nostrils was the only hint at his unease, but I noticed it all the same. “And if you call on Winter here, of all places, they have immediate pretext to kill us as soon as we get out, and also start a cosmic war.”

I hammered against the barrier with a lash of my own magic, more out of frustration than anything else. It fell apart on impact with the barrier, water against rock. “We’re pretty much screwed. Unless you can do anything about it?”

He was silent, avoiding my gaze. After a moment he stepped up to the door and splayed his hand over it, ice white fingers grazing the surface of the stone. I watched his fingers trace the whorls of the carvings, running over the furrows and the ridges with a terrible gentleness. And then he dropped his hand back to his side with a sigh. The white planes of his face were more closed off than I’d ever seen them.

“Thomas,” I bit out. “I need to know: can you get us out of here?”

The word came out like a sigh, almost unvoiced. “Yes. With your help.”

His flair for drama manifested at the worst possible times. “That’s great! Go ahead! Whatever you need, I’ll give.”

He winced. “Harry. I want you to think very carefully about what you’re asking me to do.”

There was something in his tone I couldn’t place, a darkness hiding in the shadows of his words. Despite the warmth of the hall a shiver ran down the nape of my neck. “You need to feed on me,” I finally said. The words sounded foreign in my ears, like they’d been spoken by someone else.

He nodded, like he didn’t trust himself to speak.

I took a deep breath. “If that’s our only way out… I’ll do it. I just- I’m not some gorgeous model. I mean- look at me.”

He gave me a sad smile. “That’s not how it works- the power comes from your pleasure, your lust. It doesn’t matter what you look like.” He didn’t deny I wasn’t a gorgeous model, I noted.

“But-“

“Harry,” he laid a hand on my arm. “Once I kiss you this will all fade away. Doubt- fear- you won’t be able to keep any of it in your head. Trust me in this, at least.”

“I do- of course I do.” I sighed. “This must seem so unfair to you.”

Something in his face froze. “How so?”

“I get to be out of it. You have to be present, even knowing it’s me you’re sleeping with.”

He met my eyes with a smile, but something about the twist of his mouth was sad. “I’ll manage somehow.”

He’d probably have to have therapy after this, just to get over the trauma of sleeping with his clumsy, awkward, fool of a brother. I’d always imagined he only slept with people as beautiful as he was: sex like a dance, all slender limbs and graceful motions. I couldn’t compete with that, not in a million years. But he was willing to make this sacrifice to save my life and I’d do my best to make it easy for him. I let out a shaky breath. “Okay, on three. One, two-“

He kissed me.

I’ve had a lot of kisses, over the years. Sweet kisses, tender kisses, desperate kisses, kisses that taste like the best sort of filth.

This blew them all away.

The kiss started out chaste: close-mouthed and soft, so that I could feel the roughness of his lips against my own. _Courage, Harry._ I let my eyes flutter shut and my mouth open.

He needed no invitation. He surged forward: licking into my mouth, biting hard at my lips, swallowing every noise I made. He kissed like he wanted to devour me, swallow me whole. Gone was the Thomas I knew: my gentle, playful brother. This was the hunter, the Raith. And I was its prey.

There was a hand in my hair and another on the small of my back, pulling me close against the hard planes of his chest. He yanked hard on my hair, driving my head back and forcing my mouth open, deepening the kiss. Every inch I gave, he took.

He rolled his hips against mine and I realized I was suddenly, achingly hard in the pants of my tux. Kissing had never done this to me, not so quickly, not so deeply. I was burning up inside; my skin felt too tight and every nerve ending was electrified by the smallest of touches. I would have sold my soul for a hand on my cock in that moment: I would have died for it, would have killed for it. White-Court pheromones pumping through my system, some part of me supplied. I was high as a kite on god knows what, and I did not care in the slightest.

He took his time with his torture: he moved away from my mouth to ravage my neck, laving his tongue against the sensitive flesh just above my collar, biting bruises into the skin beneath my jaw. I thought I was going to go mad with it. I could hear my own voice echoing off the stone: high breathy whimpers, verging on sobs.

He finally ripped his mouth away from me with a gasp. I felt like I’d been shot: my knees buckled and I crumpled in his arms, helpless to do anything but cling to him and breath in and out in stuttered moans. My bones felt like jello; if he’d let go of me I’d collapse into a heap on the floor.

Instead, he hoisted me back up, then shoved me hard against the wall. I whimpered as my back hit the stone; there would be bruises but empty night, I didn’t care, I didn’t care at all. My hands were scrabbling over his arms and shoulders- damn the suit, I wanted to touch him, to feel him. I wanted his bare skin against mine.

“Little brother,” he purred. “So much fighting. So much twisting in the wind. Let me take care of you.”

“Thomas?” I shivered, and even to my own ears I sounded wrecked. “I want- I need-“

He cut me off with another searing kiss, swallowing whatever I’d been going to say. He held me against the wall with one hand and with the other, ripped apart my tux jacket and shirt, letting the scraps of ruined fabric fall to the ground. And then he was pressing close, touching me all over- he raked his nails up my back, scored them over the curve of my biceps, rolled my nipples between his fingers until they were red with abuse. He touched me everywhere, marking his claim into the skin of my body- everywhere but where I really needed it.

My cock was leaking in my pants, the fabric of my crotch was dark with precum. God, I wanted friction, needed it. I tried to grind against him, doing everything I could to rock my hips- but his hand was like a vise on my waist, pinning me in place. I bucked up into the empty air instead, on the edge of tears from the torture of it.

“Thomas,” I babbled. I was crying now, thick tears falling down my cheeks. “Thomas, please-“

He scratched a line of fire down my back, licking at my tears like they were fine wine. “I know what you need, baby brother. Let me give it to you.”

And with that he was sinking to his knees, slinging my legs over his shoulders like I weighed nothing at all. I was shaking like a leaf; it was all I could do to twist my fingers in his hair, holding on for dear life.

“You’re doing so well, little brother. You’re being so good for me.” He leaned in and mouthed at the fabric of my pants, scraping the barest hint of teeth over my crotch.

Words were beyond me at that point, god, I would have said anything, done anything to get his mouth on me. Every vein was pumped full of vampire pheromones, every atom in my body was screaming for more.

He chuckled; I could feel the vibrations in my bones. And then he was ripping away the fabric of my pants with his teeth like it was paper and then, blessedly, finally, putting his mouth on me.

He didn’t tease or play with me; I don’t think I could have survived if he had. He just opened wide and sucked me down to the hilt, tongue laving at the underside of my cock, the muscles of his throat working the head.

I came almost immediately, so hard I saw stars on the edges of my vision. He held me through it as I shuddered and spasmed in his arms, his throat milking every drop from me.

He pulled back then, and I was slumping down to the floor, utterly wrecked and halfway unconscious. This was the last thing I saw before I went under: Thomas gathering me in his arms, pressing soft kisses to my shivering forehead that tasted nothing like lust.

“Harry,” he was whispering, and his voice was wrecked, halfway to a sob. “Oh, Harry.”

***

I came to in Thomas’s arms, wrapped in his jacket and the shreds of my suit.

“-should really get that door fixed; someone might get hurt,” Thomas was saying in that cold aristocratic voice he did so well.

I opened my eyes. We were next to the portal back to Chicago. There was a fae woman opposite us, looking at me with an amused expression on her face. “We’re very sorry for the inconvenience. Though I’m glad to see you found a way to pass the time.” She let out a small laugh, her voice like bells blown by a summer wind. “In fact, we have several lovely suites if you’d like to continue?” Ever the gracious hosts, faeries. Deceitful fuckers, the lot of them.

Thomas’ arms tightened around me. “Your kindness is noted. But I should take him home to rest. You know how fragile humans are.”

“Of course,” she purred. “Wouldn’t want to break your new toy just yet.”

I could tell without looking he had that icy smile on his face, the one that didn’t reach his eyes. “I don’t intend to.”

***

We were both silent on the trip back to my flat. I dozed for most of it; Thomas had taken more energy than I’d expected to get the door open. He let me lean against him as he carried me, his chest a solid presence against my head.

We finally got to my flat; he fumbled the door open and deposited me on my bed before finally breaking the silence.

“Harry,” he said, staring fixedly at a spot on the wall just above my head. “We can handle this however you want. If you want to never speak of it again, that’s fine. Hell, if you don’t think you can handle seeing me-“

He went on, but I wasn’t paying attention to whatever it was he was saying. I was thinking about the way he had held me as I’d passed out. Those kisses on my forehead. The tremor in his voice.

“Thomas,” I cut in. He stopped his little speech and blinked at me. “It’s late. I’m tired. We can talk about this in the morning.”

He stood there biting his lip with the most concerned expression on his face. God, he still didn’t get it.

“Thomas,” I repeated. “Get your ass in the bed.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. “It’s a small bed,” he finally said, climbing in beside me.

But he was smiling when he said it.


End file.
